


the thing with feathers

by flightofwonder



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Booker isn't in this, Daemon Touching, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Kidnapping, Nile Freeman Gets A Lot of Hugs: the Fic, Nile Freeman-centric, POV Nile Freeman, Team as Family, also, amongst other Meaningful Touches, but the actions of his consequences sure are!, family as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 14:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30023256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightofwonder/pseuds/flightofwonder
Summary: Leaning against the doorframe, Nile looked out onto the domestic scene she was about to interrupt. At first glance, there was nothing unusual at the sight. Joe was in the kitchen cooking a great-smelling sausage, Nicky lounged on the couch and watched the snow fall outside the window, and Andy leaned over the kitchen table reading a book. Compared to the storm of bullets and glass she’d dealt with in London, watching them relax in their remote safe house in the Alps was almost picturesque.It wasn’t the humans that troubled Nile. It was their daemons.A "His Dark Materials"/daemons fusion.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Nile Freeman's Mother
Comments: 87
Kudos: 122
Collections: The Old Guard Big Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I've been working on this for four months, and now it's finished. "Started making it, had a breakdown, bon appétit!" is about where I'm at with this, in all honestly, but I still put a shitton of work and love into this, so I hope that shows.
> 
> The biggest thank you to my beta, Sara, who improved this work immensely, and to my artist, [Aryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlowingoftheTide/pseuds/FlowingoftheTide), who beautifully brought one of my ideas to life. I am grateful that I got to have the chance to work with you. Also, thank you to everyone who put up with my whining about this on tumblr, you're the best and I appreciate you.
> 
> To note: I consider this more of a general "daemon au" instead of a "His Dark Materials" fusion, because I don't touch on the absolute insanity that goes down in the wider universes of those books, and I adjusted some of the "rules" of how daemons work for my benefit. You don't have to know anything about His Dark Materials to enjoy this work, as I'm hoping I explain everything, but all you really have to know is that a daemon is an animal equivalent of someone's soul. 
> 
> Finally, I'm [flightsofwonder](https://flightsofwonder.tumblr.com/) over on tumblr, so if you have any questions/think I'm missing a tag/honestly just want more details about this universe, please feel free to send me asks, I love any chance I get to interact. Any and all comments I receive on here would be greatly appreciated, too.
> 
> Thank you, and enjoy!

It was a beautiful and peaceful morning. Snow floated outside the window with a lethargic air, reflecting light off the windowpane as it fell. Nile should have been quietly appreciating all of this with a cup of coffee, or warming up for a bout of training, as was usually the case around this time of the morning. In the few weeks since she’d helped them escape Merrick, she had built a routine for herself. It helped ease her anxieties and gave her something to focus on that wasn’t the life-altering situation that she had found herself in. 

But that morning, Nile decided she couldn’t keep numbing herself with familiar drills and patterns, not anymore. She had something to say, something she’d been wanting to say for days now. And if she didn’t say it, she was at risk of shaking right out of her skin. Out of what – anticipation? terror? excitement? – she had no idea. But she knew she couldn’t go about pretending this wasn’t eating at her. 

Leaning against the doorframe, Nile looked out onto the domestic scene she was about to interrupt. At first glance, there was nothing unusual at the sight. Joe was in the kitchen cooking a great-smelling sausage, Nicky lounged on the couch and watched the snow fall outside the window, and Andy leaned over the kitchen table reading a book. Compared to the storm of bullets and glass she’d dealt with in London, watching them relax in their remote safe house in the Alps was almost picturesque. 

It wasn’t the humans that troubled Nile. It was their daemons.

Her own daemon, Jordan, sat behind Nile’s feet. The black tips on his ears stood straight and alert, his paws firmly on the ground. The bobcat had stood this way a hundred times now, at careful attention as sergeants barked orders at them at boot camp, and then in the field. They were surrounded by dog daemons back in Afghanistan, and Jordan stood out as the only bobcat daemon in their ranks, but Nile never floundered under scrutiny then and she wouldn’t now. 

Of course, this was a different sort of army, and they were giving her a different sort of attention, one not based on paper-thin assumptions and ranked hierarchy, but their mutual respect. Rationally, she knew that. But the people she was with now, they weren’t like anyone Nile had ever met before, and a remnant of her old self wavered in the face of it. 

She saw an image transposed on top of the one in front of her: a shadowed, crowded section of an old French church where she first met these immortals, instead of the bright and open living room lodge they were in now. But her gut reacted to both images the same way – that everything she saw was wrong. Humans and daemons, casually breaking every rule she thought everyone knew. 

Andy’s daemon – they hadn’t known his name, not back then – transformed in the blink of an eye from a leopard into an owl as soon as they entered the musty main room, landing comfortably on another man’s shoulder before he started to absently groom his blonde hair. Not one of them looked so much as perturbed. Someone else’s daemon, a jackal-looking creature, came prancing up to get scratches from Andy, and Andy just gave them, even grinning as she put her hands on someone else’s soul. Nile was worried for a second that she might throw up.

Immortality was huge and impossible and terrifying, but so was this.

Watching their daemons twist and transform and touch other humans so casually, as if it weren’t the greatest taboo on the planet… on that first night, Nile had no idea what to make of it. 

And she still didn’t, not really. The difference was that now, one rescue mission later, Nile trusted these people well enough to stop watching them with apprehension. Nile knew better than to doubt their humanity, now that she saw the wall at Copley’s place, seen what good every one of them had done in just the past hundred years. And Nile knew that Andy was as human as they come, for all that she probably wished she weren’t sometimes. Nile didn’t see a soulless killing machine or an abomination when she looked into Andy’s grey eyes, or when she looked at any of them. She saw the love Nicky and Joe shared, saw the grief Booker carried, and it all struck Nile as very human. 

They were the oldest humans alive. So, if Nile was still uncomfortable around their daemons, it served to reason that Nile was the one who had to change. 

Learning fighting techniques, drills, even languages and code-cracking, all of that felt routine to Nile. It was difficult, but she didn’t worry if she’d eventually master it. She had pushed herself to learn such things before, and she would do it again.

But the fact was, all those skills didn’t matter if her daemon didn’t learn what he had to. Not only to learn the tricks of the trade so that they could work well together – memories of a whirlwind of daemon transformations at Merrick’s still blurred in her eyes sometimes when she tried to sleep – but to be a member of this group at all. 

No one had said so outright. There were no ultimatums, and Nile didn’t expect them anymore. Still, as days turned into weeks, none of them so much as mentioned a next job. At Copley’s, Andy had been so eager to get started, but as far as Nile could tell, none of them had made a move to actually prepare for another mission. There wasn’t even a specific reason they were in Switzerland, as far Nile could tell. Andy had pitched it, and they had said yes, and that was it.

Nile couldn’t help but feel that this hiatus was because of her. Not that anyone had implied as such, but Nile could connect the dots. There were things that their daemons could do that hers simply couldn’t, and that left their team at an obvious disadvantage. 

Her body was immortal, whether she liked it or not. But to be like these people and their daemons – to transform easily, to travel such great distances apart – was not something that naturally occurred to Jordi. He would have to learn how to be like them before she was a real member of this team.

As time passed, Nile felt a mounting pressure towards herself. Now, she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. So, she strode to the doorway of the living room and said, sternly, “I have to ask you something.” 

Five sets of eyes, both human and not, landed on her at once with a sort of terrifying synchronicity. For half a second, Nile debated rescinding her words, the weight of those stares was so daunting. She didn’t fear them, not anymore, but she wondered if it was inevitable that her lack of experience would cause her to buckle under the weight of such ancient eyes.

Nile set her shoulders and took a breath. 

“I think it’s obvious that before I can officially get started with any of… this,” Nile gestured to the air, indicating their general immortal situation. “Before I go back in the field and help you guys, I have to get trained.”

Nicky, who was leaning back against the couch, nodded but looked a bit confused. “I thought that was what we were doing already.”

Nile shook her head. “No, I mean… Jordan and I, we have to learn how to do what _you_ do.” 

And she said this while staring into the silver eyes of the leopard sitting at Nicky’s back. His long, lithe form stretched the ridge of the couch, a large paw draped casually over Nicky’s shoulder in the mimicry of a housecat – _he wasn’t Nicky’s daemon, he shouldn’t be touching him, wrong_ , part of Nile still hissed – and he flicked his spotted tail as he regarded Nile. The leopard’s intimidating form didn’t scare her. He was Andy’s soul incarnate, and Nile was getting used to seeing what was behind both sets of grey eyes.

A brown-feathered hawk perched on Joe’s shoulder as he cooked in the kitchenette, and they both froze at Nile’s statement. Looking at the two of them now, an almost perfectly matching set of curious brown eyes, Nile almost wanted to laugh. Of course she had assumed the hawk had been Joe’s daemon when she met him, and by the way she comfortably perched on Joe’s broad shoulders at all hours of the day, any reasonable human being would have assumed the same thing – until the falcon opened her mouth and a thick Italian accent came out. Nile was pretty sure she didn’t imagine a barely-hidden grin on Joe’s face when the falcon had spoken for the first time in front of Nile, leaving her stunned. 

( _Wrong, wrong –_ )

And where there should have been six pairs of eyes, there were only five. Joe’s actual daemon was nowhere in sight, and that should have been impossible. You weren’t supposed to go farther than a few feet away from your daemon. It wasn’t supposed to even be physically possible to be separated without feeling intense pain. Even the most rigorously trained soldiers couldn’t stand to be apart from their daemons for long. But Joe’s golden wolf was nowhere in sight, and something in Nile’s chest sang _wrong, wrong, wrong_ —

And that was precisely why she had to learn: in the context of this band of immortals, somehow, every rule they broke was right. No one knew what it meant to be human like they did. And if she and Jordan didn’t figure out how to be like them, then... well, they didn’t know what would happen. But Nile’s future was tied with theirs, now. She had chosen them, so she had to do right by them. That meant training her daemon to do all those impossible things she once thought no daemon was meant to do. 

Even though Andy was sitting at the kitchen table, Nile kept her eyes locked with the leopard from across the room. He blinked only once. 

“Sure, we can train you,” the daemon – Rex, as he was called – rumbled lowly, and Nile let out a breath. But when she turned to look at Jordi, his back was stiff, his eyes wide and unblinking. He’d been like this for days, now, and Nile found it impossible to relax when he was this tense. _This training should help_ , she told herself. _They needed some direction, that was all._

Still, as Nile felt her daemon’s tension like it was her own, she wondered if they would sleep any easier that night.


	2. Chapter 2

Jordan settled early.

This wasn’t unusual, not on the South Side. Kids grew up fast because they had to. It was so common, kids even made their daemons pretend to be settled. It wasn’t until Nile went to high school that she learned that daemons were supposed to settle in their early twenties, when the brain stopped maturing. Child psychologists could call the kids in her neighborhood abnormalities and outliers, but as far as Nile was concerned, it was just reality.

She had fond memories of a time when Jordan could transform into every and anything he wanted. He would flitter as a hummingbird above her brother’s daemon to annoy them into wakefulness, sing like a magpie in the kitchen until her father’s bulldog finally howled along in glee, land as a butterfly and ride the shoulder of her mother’s honey badger. There were times as a child when Nile felt so light, she swore Jordi could float on the breeze forever.

Her father’s death grounded Jordan permanently. 

Nile was a quiet and obedient child. The day of her father’s funeral was the only time she ever screamed in public. Screamed against the fabric of her mother’s black dress as she was pulled away, screamed loud enough for it to echo through the entire sanctuary and back into her ears. One last rage against the finality that was closing in around her: that her daddy was gone and never coming back. Then, light a candle, that rage was snuffed out.

Nile didn’t remember exactly when her soul settled into his final form. All she knew for sure was that Jordan would never fly again.

* * *

“The problem is this,” said Cia, very diplomatically. “We have no idea how to train you.”

Nile blinked, dumbfounded.

It was a beautiful day in this remote part of Switzerland, which was already high on the list of the most beautiful places Nile had ever seen. Of course, the list was short, and she knew that it would get _much_ longer, but that didn’t change how her breath caught at the sight when she walked out onto their cabin’s balcony. Their lonesome establishment was bracketed by the snowy alps, the warm greens of the grass fading gradually into soft blues and whites as they travelled further up and out, eventually touching the sky. It was like she’d stepped right into a painting.

And it was _quiet_. Living in Chicago, and then the marine barracks, silence was a rare commodity in her life. But here, only crickets, birds, and the sound of the local train carried distantly on the wind. 

Surrounded by such beautiful scenery, the quiet still unnerved her. Even now, sitting on a hillside a few feet away from the cabin, the lack of harsh ambiance made something in her skin crawl. 

“But all of you know how transform and all... that,” Nile gestured vaguely, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “Is Jordi just gonna know how to transform _automatically_?”

Nile noticed how Jordi’s back straightened at her words and spared him a glance, but Jordan didn’t say a thing. Something curdled in her chest at his silence, but she chose not to address it and to keep her focus on the other daemon in front of her.

Cia – short for Alessia, or Alàgia, depending on if it was Nicky or Joe who you asked – flapped her wings just once, her feathers of various shades of brown moving uniformly and gracefully, but she remained perched on the nearby branch. Her gaze wasn’t focused on Nile directly, but that might have been on purpose. Nile had noticed that when they went into town, Cia looked slightly askew from the eyes of any daemons they met, a stark contrast to the way Joe gazed fondly into her yellow eyes when he ran his fingers through the downy feathers of her stomach.

“Changing forms, there isn’t a… what’s the phrase? Ah, a trick for it.” Cia’s lilting Italian accent was strangely soothing, a lot like Nicky’s. He was sitting at the base of the tree next to Joe, his head resting on Nicky’s shoulder as he dozed. His golden wolf daemon was curled up on the other side of Nicky, resting her head in Nicky’s lap. It was obvious they hadn’t been sleeping much, because all four of them shared odd hours of wakefulness, but Joe especially seemed incapable of sleeping through the night.

“Great.” Nile groused. The whole reason she wanted to train her daemon was for the benefit of the team, so it was frustrating that they didn’t have any substantial advice for her to do so. Though maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised by this. They had set a clear standard for being vague since her immortality began. “So I just have to wait around until Jordan just gets the ability to transform out of the blue?”

“Not exactly,” Cia admitted, keeping her voice quiet to keep from waking Joe. “It’s something you get used to doing over time.”

Nile glanced at the humans and daemons curled together at the base of the tree, and a familiar uneasiness turned her stomach. “And Jordan is supposed to just… get used to being touched, too?”

“Nobody will touch you unless you reach out first.” Nicky’s hawk daemon spoke softly from where she sat perched above the scene. She was speaking to Jordan now, who cocked his head at the attention, but otherwise remained stoic; if the bobcat had any anxieties at the prospect, he wasn’t letting it show.

“And… if he never wants to?” Nile asked, careful to sound neutral.

“Then they’ll never touch him,” said the nearby leopard easily. His chin was in Andy’s lap, but the rest of him was splayed out in the grass, much like Andy herself, who added, “But I can’t promise these cubs won’t crawl all over you, Nile.”

Cia squawked indignantly, but Rex just rolled over onto his other side, letting out a pleased growl.

“You’re just protesting because Neppi isn’t awake to defend herself,” said Andy. Nile could make out the curve of a smile from where she was sitting.

The hawk shook her tail feathers indignantly but did not acquiesce to Andy’s point. “ _Anyway_ , that matter is completely up to Jordan. We won’t pressure you to do anything, but we have our habits with one another, and simply ask that you respect them.”

Nile nodded easily. No matter how she personally felt about Jordi being touched, it was obvious that the act wasn’t a breach of trust between these immortals. It was a solidification of it. Even if just imagining someone touching Jordan made her uncomfortable, she had to admit that watching the easy trust between these daemons and humans was sort of beautiful. Even miraculous, in a way. Nile smirked and thumbed her golden cross, absently wondering what kind of sermon their pastor at home would write about it.

“Learning how to transform and how to be separated from each other, however, is not something that can be quickly taught or trained,” continued Cia. Nile noticed that Nicky hadn’t said a word since this started, and seemed perfectly content for his daemon to do the speaking for him. Nicky didn’t strike Nile as shy in any way – he was remarkably easy to talk to, in her opinion – but if she had to choose, she would say Nicky was more reserved than Cia. Everything about Cia was open and welcoming, her tone almost melodic, and she perched on everyone’s shoulder but Nile’s.

“Okay,” started Nile, leaning her arms back on the grass, “Then how did you guys learn?”

“We didn’t have to. We just changed,” Rex said simply. “Or, well, most of us did.”

Andy suddenly got tense and gave her daemon a quick nudge to the side. Rex didn’t so much as growl. He just readjusted himself on the grass, landing his chin on Joe’s right knee, light enough to not disturb him.

“I wasn’t always a leopard. I first settled as a horse, a kind that doesn’t exist anymore.” Nile noticed that he sounded a bit wistful when he spoke about his past, which Andy rarely did. Maybe Rex was there to carry that for her.

“What happened?” asked Jordan, drawing a surprised attention to him. Even Nile was taken aback. It was the first time Jordan had spoken in days.

But before anything else happened, Andy pushed herself upright – too fast, Nile could tell from a badly concealed wince on her face – but her eyes were distant, difficult to reach, and suddenly all the easy comfort of the afternoon was gone.

Nile moved to help her when Andy made it clear she was getting to her feet. Andy didn’t refuse the offered hand, but neither did she linger a moment longer once she was up, instantly marching across the field towards nothing, leaving her daemon behind.

Rex didn’t so much as flinch as Andy disappeared over the hill, but Nile’s thoughts immediately started racing: _What distance was painful to them after thousands of years of learning to be apart? Did anything tie them together at all? Or were they like ghosts, each wandering the earth alone?_

As if nothing had occurred, Rex continued, quietly by evenly. “What happened was this: we met Quynh. Then, we lost her.”

It took longer than Nile would usually care to admit for his implication to sink in, but once it did, it sank like a rock in her stomach.

He wasn’t talking about transforming for a temporary period: he was talking about shifting _permanently_. About losing their core identity, the thing that made them… _them_.

A memory came to her then, quick and sharp: a dank space with little firelight and overwhelming shadows. A small bird with feathers of blue that were hardly visible in the cavernous darkness. And her voice, heavy with a thick French accent, but heavier still with emotion as she said, “You will always and forever be the young woman right there,” and her beak pointed in Jordan’s direction when she continued: “But you won’t be. One day, you’ll change so much, the people you love wouldn’t be able to recognize you.”

Nile didn’t understand, but before she could ask, Booker’s daemon had flown up into the rafters of the mine, where she stayed for the rest of the night. Left uneasy, Nile had thought she was being metaphorical. But with what Rex was telling her now…

Nile looked at Jordan, tried to imagine him as anything but the bobcat he was in now, the form they had both fought so hard to be, and she suddenly felt like she wanted to cry.

This immortality wasn’t going to let her keep anything. Not even herself.

“Nile,” Nicky spoke, gentle and concerned. Nile didn’t reply. Instead, she zipped over to Jordan and pressed her fingers into the soft fur on his back, suddenly feeling as if she didn’t do it right that moment, he would disappear like those daemons at Merrick’s did after their humans were killed. Nile needed to feel Jordan’s familiar shape under her hands, the shape he’d been for more than a decade, but Nile could feel his muscles tense under her touch, and she thought she knew why. What was a decade to a hundred years? To a thousand?

If she met her parents in Heaven one day, an eternity from now, would they even recognize her?

She vaguely heard someone say her name again, and she willed herself to look over at Nicky. His brown hawk had settled on the ground next to her. Nile heard her exhale, long and slow, then offered, “Let’s go for a walk.”

They didn’t go too far. Cia only led Nile and Jordan to where the grass turned to stones and the meadow slowly changed to a mountainside. Cia landed gracefully on a nearby boulder. 

Nile spoke tersely. “Any more bombshells you guys want to drop on me?”

“No, I think that’s it,” said Cia in that flat way she and Nicky had of talking when Nile was pretty sure they were trying to be funny. Cia sighed and her tone changed back to the gentle, quiet one Nile was used to. “Just because it happened to us does not mean it will happen to you.”

Jordan climbed onto a bolder parallel to the one Cia was on, and Nile scoffed. “So, I _won’t_ endure some horrible trauma that will fundamentally change who I am?”

“It’s not always trauma,” Cia started, and now she was staring right at Nile as she spoke. “For Andy and… yes.” Cia hesitated, like everyone in the group did when Booker was brought up as a subject. And the sliver of terror grew longer at the realization that if his daemon transformed from trauma, it must have been from watching his kids die.

Shit. _Shit_.

“Rex was a beautiful eagle when I met him,” explained Cia, and Nile frowned.

“He said he was some kind of horse.”

“And then, they met Quynh and Huy.” The hawk spoke their names with strong grief, as they had on the first night when they explained Nile’s dreams to her. “She told us... well, she doesn’t talk about it anymore, but you would think by how Andy used to tell it, they had fallen in love and Rex had transformed seamlessly overnight.”

 _Oh._ Something in Nile softened, and she felt her shoulders drop. _There was love, too._

Nile processed this information, cold stone pressing against her back. She didn’t feel _better_ about the idea, exactly, but it was good to know that they could change because of good things, too. Things like Joe and Nicky still shared, Nile realized.

“And… you?” asked Nile.

“Oh, I was a terror.” Her laugh was combined with a shrill squawk, and it was absurd enough that Nile snorted with amusement. “Joe’s version is highly revisionist. I was miserable and afraid and _angry_ – at Nicolo for changing, at Yusuf for being the cause of that change, and Yusuf’s daemon for not… well. I was convinced that because she wasn’t torturing herself, she didn’t hold me in the same regard as I did her. I was wrong, of course. Joe was already a good man when we killed him. He wasn’t the one who needed to change.”

“So Joe’s daemon,” Nile started, “She’s never shifted like Andy? Like you?”

“She’s learned to transform – how, you would have to ask her – but for as long as I’ve known her, she’s always gone back to being the same old wolf.” The fondness in her voice was impossible to mistake.

So, maybe she didn’t _have_ to change. Nile relaxed a bit, but the huge, yawning uncertainty still hung over her head.

Jordan’s eyes caught Nile’s. She tried to imagine him without his spots and tail, with wings instead of claws. 

The idea that she could change who she was _that_ much…

Jordan didn’t hiss or growl, but there was a sudden sharpness in his eyes.

Nile looked up at the wide expanse of blue sky for a moment, then back at Cia. “Do you ever miss being what you were before you were a hawk?”

“Being _who_ I was, you mean,” Cia corrected, “And no, I don’t. I used to be a hunting dog, mindlessly following orders. I was not… good. I like who I am now, Nile.”

Cia’s wings spread out wide as she readjusted herself, and even though her beak made it impossible, Nile could have sworn she saw her smile when she said, “Besides, it wasn’t until we met Joe that I ever dreamed that I could fly.”


	3. Chapter 3

Jordan didn’t talk much.

Her classmates would tease Nile for it, but none of their daemons dared challenge the bobcat who stalked beside her. It took her a long time to realize that the others were intimidated by him. He didn’t boast or threaten like some of the other kids’ daemons did, he just wasn’t one for conversation. That’s just how he was most of the time after he settled. After their dad died.

It was different with their mom and their brother. Even with the gaping absence of their father, Nile’s mom worked hard to keep them a tightly-knit group. All of them were different after his death, that was inevitable, but Jordan would speak with their daemons a bit more freely in their apartment, even tease and joke around like they used to. Jordan still chased her brother’s daemon down the hall when he was being a brat, and Jordan still rubbed up against mama’s daemon for comfort, even though he was almost twice the honey badger’s size now.

Her mom saw the difference in Jordan and brought it up a few times, but she knew as well as Nile that there wasn’t anything they could really do about it. Like hell they could afford therapy, even if they had the time between their multiple jobs. And besides, Nile thought her daemon was probably fine. He wasn’t lashing out or causing problems at school or at work, and that was the most important thing.

When the Marines came to her school, they looked at the kids’ daemons more than they did the kids themselves. Nile wasn’t surprised when an officer handed her a pamphlet at the end of the school day, but she was surprised when she read it and gave it some serious consideration. She had never thought concretely about a career after graduation – she had remnants of a lofty dream of studying art history, but she knew that wasn’t realistic – but joining the Marines would mean her family would be looked after, and they could give her a track to university.

And it was something she could finally have in common with her dad. When she was little, she used to say that Jordan would settle as a bulldog, just like her dad’s daemon did. 

No one commented on Jordan’s lack of social skills once she started boot camp. Most daemons weren’t expected to talk, and the officers preferred it that way. They eyed her daemon’s form – and sometimes she wondered, why the hell did they recruit her if they didn’t like that her daemon was a bobcat? – but her fellow soldiers just ribbed her good-naturedly about it.

Dizzy and Jay also had odd daemons for Marines – a gecko and a barn owl – so it wasn’t a surprise that they ended up gelling with Jordan and Nile. They accepted Jordan and his quiet ways without conditions, and that was such a nice change of pace from high school, it didn’t take long for them to bond. Jordan talked a bit more often around their daemons in their downtime, and the three of them became a strong core unit, inseparable.

Until Nile’s throat got slit.

The last thing Nile saw before she died for the first time was a paw reaching out towards her as Jordi splayed out on the dirt, twitching like roadkill.

* * *

Nile didn’t even realize when she first touched someone else’s daemon.

“Oh _shit_ —” She jumped so fast, the chair she was sitting in toppled backwards, barely missing Jordan when it hit the floor with a clang.

“Fuck – oh my god, I am _so_ sorry,” Nile stammered as she crossed her arms, feeling shame course through her, every instinct in her bones telling her she did something unforgivable.

But the wolf’s ears just perked up, giving her a faintly amused air. “I’m the one who asked for scratches. I hardly think you owe me an apology for giving them.”

“Oh,” Nile said, her mind still running a million miles an hour to try and figure out how she got here, casually touching Joe’s daemon, and why the golden wolf let her do it. The world felt off-kilter, and she had to take a moment to right herself.

No small part of her surprise was that Neppi was here at all. Zeineb – Neppi, she had insisted when they first met – still had the accent that Joe had evidently lost. It had been a day or two since Nile had last been in the same room with her. When she wasn’t sleeping at uneven hours of the day with Joe, she had taken to wandering the grounds of their residence and further out by herself. They hadn’t shared more than a few words since Merrick’s, and while Nicky reassured Nile that Neppi was okay, Nile still felt uncertain at the sight.

Strangely, though his daemon was often missing, Joe was overly friendly towards Nile, perhaps to make up for Neppi’s absence. Nile’s discomfort at talking with a man without his daemon didn’t last long in the face of Joe’s sincere manner and friendly demeanor. She could tell by the way Joe held himself that he was just as tired as Neppi was, but he still tried to engage with Nile, asking about her family and her hobbies, obviously putting in an effort to make her feel welcome. She appreciated it, and she even started to get used to seeing him with Nicky’s daemon all the time instead of his own. She didn’t even feel slighted by Neppi’s lack of presence; she could guess they’d all been coping with the aftermath of Merrick’s in both private and public ways. But watching Neppi’s canine shape transform into a dot of color in the distant hillsides still made something in Nile uneasy.

From a distance, the wolf looked a muted kind of gold, but now, up close Nile noticed the intricate shading of her pelt’s color: her grey-white coat turned a tinge darker at her shoulders, creating a pool of warm orange color that ran down her legs and onto her tail. Her ears were large, mantled by red fur, and a brown slope ran down her nose and highlighted her big, amber eyes.

And she was large, larger than Nile had thought she was when she first watched the creature wander those hills, but she didn’t hold any threat in her posture. Still, if you had asked Nile yesterday to put money on Joe’s wolf daemon being the first one to reach out and practically ask to be touched by her, she wouldn’t have done it. Especially since this was the first time Nile had even been this close to Zeineb. The contrast between expectation and reality was so vast, it was almost dizzying.

“Ask for scratch… I mean, it’s fine. No big deal,” Nile tried to say in an accommodating tone as she moved to right her toppled chair before sitting back down. “Just, ah, wasn’t expecting it, is all.”

Zeineb’s tone remained light, and she let out a slightly bashful-sounding chuckle.

“Ah,” she said, flicking her bushy tail back and forth, “Well, as the others can tell you, I’m a bit—”

“Clingy,” came a slick voice from behind, and Nile turned to see Rex practically skulking from one doorway to the next.

“ _Tactile_ ,” Neppi retorted with a non-threatening snap of her jaw with just enough baited heat for Nile to giggle out the rest of the tension in her body. 

Neppi’s ears perked back at the sound, and Nile fought the urge to feel self-conscious. According to Andy, Neppi was the easiest one to read, human or daemon, because she had no qualms about making her feelings known. Nile had believed her, but witnessing such transparency of emotions after days of silence was different, and slightly jarring. She wasn’t used to the people around her being so hyper-sensitive to her emotions, and the sudden attention from this daemon, in particular, was a bit much, but she didn’t think she disliked it.

“Are you like that with… everyone?” Nile tried to imagine it, being so at ease with everyone and _anyone_ touching the most vulnerable part of her, and she couldn't. Was this another soul-altering immortality tidbit she had to get used to?

But Zeineb snorted incredulously. “Everyone I trust. Of course not _everyone_.”

“What, you already trust me?” Nile had meant for it to come out lightly, as an easy joke, instead of so incredulously.

Zeineb, however, just cocked her head and spoke, voice light and easy, almost a tease. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t trust you?”

That surprised Nile even more. She could get trusting someone to touch your soul after knowing them for hundreds of years, since ordinary humans didn’t even experience that longevity in a relationship, but there was a _reason_ touching someone’s daemon was such a taboo. People loved and trusted, but they also changed and abused that trust. There had to be boundaries in place. At least, that was what Nile always thought.

Nile remembered the few times she’d seen Neppi ask Booker for a scratch on just that first night, and how Booker affectionately dug his fingers under her chin without a second thought. They must have done that a thousand times, maybe more. Nile thought about how much faith you must have in a person to let their fingers brush your soul every day. And she thought about how devastating it must be, having that same person turn around and get you captured and killed.

And after such a horrible betrayal by someone they obviously loved, Neppi still trusted Nile to touch her?

Nile’s throat felt tight, and she had no idea why she wanted to tear up now, of all times, and why she felt like she had been granted something so precious. She had no idea what to do with it.

“No,” Nile admitted. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t trust me.”

When the wolf spoke again, the levity was gone. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. It wasn’t you. I just…” She let out a mournful sigh.

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Nile said a bit too quickly. If Neppi wanted to talk to Nile now, she wasn’t about to push her away.

“Good,” said Neppi, the edges of her lips cocked in a sort of smile. “Yusuf is the better one with words, not me. Still, I’m here now, and I want to try and help if I can.”

“You mean with my training?” Nile asked, and Neppi nodded. Nile had been talking to Nicky and his daemon about what she and Jordan could work on the past few days. They even talked when Neppi slept curled up on Nicky’s side with her snout resting on his lap in her fitful sleep. Was it any wonder that Nile thought Neppi was Nicky’s daemon in the beginning?

(Nile can’t remember the last time Jordi rested on her lap. She had wanted him to, that first night in the bunker with all these strangers, but he had curled up at the foot of her bed, wrapped in his usual silence.)

“Okay,” said Nile carefully, not looking back at Jordan as she leaned against the top of her chair. “First of all: how do you change without worrying about changing permanently?”

Every sunrise, she had dragged Jordan into the chilly morning air and encouraged him to try to transform. And every time, Jordan remained unchanged, looking a little bewildered, and a bit something else, something that Nile didn’t dwell on long enough to discern.

“How I transform is not that different from when you humans go undercover,” Neppi explained. “You change who you are for a short period of time, right? But deep down, you are never at risk of forgetting who you really are.”

Nile must have made a particularly irritated face without meaning to, because Neppi literally barked out laughing.

“I know, I know,” Zeineb chuckled, her bristly fur bouncing with her laughter, “It sounds so easy when I say it, right? Much harder to actually do.”

“No shit,” Nile rolled her eyes, but she felt her lips crack a smile. “Okay, then, what about distance?”

Zeineb hummed, the canine quality of her voice giving it a raspy undertone. Then, she cocked her head, indicating for Nile to follow her out the door and onto the grassy knolls outside. As the soft earth gave way under her feet, she realized that she hadn’t wondered where Joe was for the entirety of their conversation. She also realized for the first time that she didn’t feel uncomfortable in just the daemon’s presence. Maybe she was adjusting to this more quickly than she thought she would. The thought filled her with some pride.

They walked through the meadow until they could see the edge of a tree line, then Neppi sat on her back legs.

“Getting used to being separated is a lot like physically getting stronger,” she explained. “You work up to it, a little bit at a time, and after a while, you both adjust. It’s like – building muscle, in a way.”

This actually made perfect sense to Nile. She was used to pushing through the pain to gain some strength. A rush of excitement came over her at the prospect of finally being able to make a tangible difference in Jordan’s training. So, she set her shoulders and looked over at her daemon.

“If I stay here, do you think you can make it to the tree line?” Nile asked. Jordan didn’t even blink, just stared at her blankly in response. He didn’t share any of what he was feeling. Nile felt a wave of indignant anger start to replace the worry she felt towards her daemon. They finally had a concrete task they could work towards, and _now_ he was keeping up the silent treatment?

“Go to the tree line,” she ordered, voice stiff. A moment passed between them, heavy and hard, and Nile could practically feel herself pushing her daemon forward in her mind.

Neppi spoke tentatively in the silence, “We should start closer, find out exactly how much distance begins to put pressure on your bond—”

“We can do it,” said Nile firmly, giving her daemon a stern look. Before Neppi could intercede, Jordan sniffed once, then began to run towards the trees.

The first few feet weren’t bad. She had felt this tug in her chest before, back when they tested her separation limits at boot camp. Back then, she thought that was all she was capable of. But she knew better now, so she didn’t call Jordan back.

The bobcat started to slow his path as the tension in her chest got tighter. Despite the rational control she commanded over them both, she was surprised when an instinctive part of her wanted to cry out, _Come back_. Her body and her soul were both flashing warning signs; she was never supposed to be this far from Jordan, not ever.

He looked back at her. Nile gritted her teeth and nodded.

The pain was starting to get sharper in her chest, now, but she told herself could handle it. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly. She could do this.

But suddenly, the pressure in her chest loosed, like someone had let go of the rope that was holding all the tension in it. For a brief, terrifying moment, she thought the bond between her and her daemon had snapped somehow – her worst fear made real – but when Nile opened her eyes, Jordan was back at her feet, panting.

“I didn’t tell you to come back,” Nile said harshly, exhausted and frustrated. They weren’t the kind to give up.

His black-tipped ears lowered, just a bit, which was more than he’d expressed in days, but Nile didn’t soften. She let her disappointment lay heavy between both of them.

She tightened her fist. Moaning about how hard something was had never helped her in the marines, and it wouldn’t help her here. Jordan had to learn how to do this if they wanted to be a member of this team. There was only one thing for it.

“Again,” Nile ordered, giving Jordan a stony look. His yellow eyes stared back at her, and she almost expected a retort.

But quick as a flash, he was off to the tree line again, and Nile steeled herself. They could do this, she told herself. It was just temporary pain, after all. Nothing could do permanent damage to them. Not anymore.


	4. Chapter 4

Jordan was the last thing Nile saw before she died, but their eyes opened at the exact same time when they snapped back to life.

As Nile gasped wetly on the ground, Jordan was right there, but it was pure instinct that drove Nile to cover Jordan’s small body. As her arms shielded Jordan’s precious fur, the bobcat looked up at her from the desert floor, nose flared and eyes wide.

When another death didn’t come, Nile turned and noticed the dark figure standing near them. She reached for her dagger and shakily got to her feet, ready to fight her way out of this.

After stabbing her kidnapper in the chest and prompty puking in the sand, Nile forced herself to stand up straight and look her kidnapper in the eye, a dark silhouette that refused to be swallowed by the saturated desert.

“Who are you?” Nile finally demanded, staring at this woman who seemed to have no daemon in sight.

Jordan snarled, a weak veneer of confidence. The woman didn’t even flinch.

“You’ve got questions, kid. I get it. You want answers? Get back in the car.”

Just then, in the car’s passenger window, Nile noticed a silhouette of a creature’s head emerge. She could barely make out the features of some kind of big cat – the sun was too bright to see clearly – but once those glistening grey eyes found hers, they were impossible to ignore.

“Who are you?” Nile asked again once she was in the car, and the big cat – a leopard, she could tell now from the spots – just stared at her intently a moment, then replied, “Ares.”

“Really?” Nile asked with raised eyebrows.

“No,” the leopard replied bluntly, and that was all the explanation she got before he turned around and curled up. Forced to share the same space, Jordan practically pushed himself against the hatch to avoid any contact with him.

After a long and arduous journey - including a brutal fight on a drug runner’s plane, of all places - the two of them made it to the safehouse in France. The group answered her questions as best they could, but she still felt lost and out of place with these strangers, a ship in a storm with no mooring. Eager for anything to help her feel more secure, she pressed the leopard again as they sat at the dinner table, “Who are you?”

“Hector,” the leopard said without a trace of sarcasm. Nile knew better now, so she managed the flattest look she could muster, and he surprised her with an earthy chuckle. Hearing any part of Andy express levity made her seem less elusive in Nile’s eyes, but she still had to resign herself to the fact that she would be kept in the dark for the rest of the night.

_Who are you?_ Nile thought as she saw the reflection of an endlessly drowning woman in the leopard’s eyes. When Andy looked away from her, her daemon didn’t. Nile wasn’t sure which was worse.

_Who are you?_ Nile thought as Andy appeared like a ghost from the shadows, her leopard’s form framed by the fiery destruction that surrounded them. Those predatory eyes looked blank when the firelight reflected in them. Blood dripped from his muzzle. The images of those bodies slain and skewered on the floor of a holy place played on a loop in Nile’s mind and she thought, _Who are you? Are you who am I supposed to be?_

* * *

“You nervous, kid?” said the blackbird perched on Nile’s shoulder. Anyone else would have assumed he was Nile’s daemon, but it was actually Andy’s daemon, Rex, transformed from his usual leopard form and acting as Nile’s second. Jordan was nowhere in sight.

“Ask me one more time and find out,” Nile replied through a tight-lipped smile.

Rex didn’t let out so much as a chirp, but Nile got the feeling that he was laughing at her anyway. If she wasn’t trying to keep up a more refined outward appearance, Nile would have even swatted playfully at the bird, something she never would have considered doing to someone else’s daemon just a few weeks ago. 

But things were changing quickly for Nile. A few weeks ago, she could barely stand to be in a different room than her daemon, and here she was, having a conversation with Andy’s daemon who was pretending to be her own. The absurdity of the situation was only highlighted by the fact that she was about to enter an upper-class European gala in a dress more expensive than anything she had ever owned.

Nile looked down and dug through her purse to give herself a moment to center herself. In the brisk night air, she stood outside the silver archways of the building, and through the glass she could see the swirl of vibrant finery that only the absurdly wealthy could ever indulge in. 

This wasn’t a mission, exactly. Nile reached out to Copley and asked for a softball assignment, and he came back with notes on a sparkling shindig in the nearby city of Geneva that had invited a very specific and very wealthy target they could hack, if one of them could get close enough to his phone. If she succeeded, Nile would finally start doing some good as a member of the team. But if she had to bail, if no one was the wiser, there was no skin off their back. The others had agreed to it easily enough, but now that she was actually in a ball gown and pretending to be rich, some nerves were starting to kick in. She was a soldier; she’d never gone undercover like this before.

Suddenly, Rex nipped lightly at her ear, which made Nile curse then smile, which was probably the intended effect. It was becoming less and less strange for Nile to feel the group’s daemons touch her so casually, and she even felt strangely better as Rex’s beak nipped her golden hoops again and again.

“Alright, alright,” Nile pushed his beak away from her face, grinning. Then, she took a deep breath through her nose, steeling herself against the ache in her chest at Jordi’s absence, then walked under the lit entrance and into the expensive revelry inside.

The ache in her chest twinged slightly as Nile walked up to the bar, since Jordan was outside the building with the others, but they had succeeded being this far apart before. Jordan could now stand to be a full mile away from Nile without clamoring back. The pain had lessened the more often they did it, like a rubber band losing the elasticity of its stretch. But it still hurt the longer they were apart, and the last time they timed her, they had made it barely an hour before Jordan had to come back. 

Which was how long she had: an hour. The countdown had started the minute she walked into the gala. She ignored the tightness in the center of her chest and smiled at the bartender behind the counter when she asked for a drink.

“Two o’clock,” Nicky’s voice chimed in her earpiece. When she turned, their target was already looking her way. She wasn’t surprised that he noticed her first – she was probably the only black woman in this whole soiree, and Copley had noted with a grimace that Mr. Bigshot had a _type_ – but Nile tried her best to look coy when the target smiled at her.

This man held himself in such obvious self-regard, it was actually amusing. He ‘casually’ brushed his fingers along his thousand-dollar watch and as he waltzed over to her in his well-tailored suit. Knowing that he got his money in trading indigenous artifacts to wealthy individuals, just looking at this guy filled Nile with a sticky sort of distaste. 

But she had an easy job: just get close enough with the team’s phone so that Joe could use it to hack the target’s phone remotely. Nile didn’t understand the mechanics, but Joe did, and that was good enough for her. The hard part was actually distracting the guy. Nile was decidedly _not_ experienced or trained in the art of seduction, but at least Rex was. That’s why he was pretending to be Nile’s daemon while Jordan stayed outside.

As the man offered Nile a drink, Rex took the lead and flew delicately down to the bar counter to approach this man’s hummingbird daemon. Nile smiled sweetly as the target leaned on the bar towards her. Rex preened his feathers and Nile leaned in, too. When the target turned away to collect their drinks, she noticed that his phone was sticking out of the right side of his pocket, and she smoothly transferred her phone from her right to her left hand so that it could hover nearby. She had to wait for the target to take a drink for her to press the home button on her phone without looking away, but in her peripheral vision, she saw her screen light up. Whatever device they had put on her phone seemed to be working.

After she listened to a few of his thoughts on the dullest shit she’d ever heard in her life - why did this guy think race cars were a cool thing to collect? - her eyes traveled down to her watch. It had been twenty minutes already, and while the pain in her chest was manageable, she didn’t know how much longer it would be. 

“Excuse me one second,” Nile said politely, then lifted her phone with the pretense that she had received a text, careful not to make the screen visible to anyone else. There wasn’t a percentage being shown, but it was still downloading. Shit. 

She leaned an arm against the bar counter, but she just barely caught her breath as the pain in her chest turned a notch sharper. 

“You okay?” asked the target, unfortunately noticing her discomfort, but she stood up straight and smiled with as much sugar as she had in her.

“Yeah, sorry, you were saying?” she said, hoping that he would keep talking about himself when prompted, and thankfully, that was exactly what he did. Nile kept smiling, and she willed herself not to look down at her phone again.

At some point, Rex gave a sensual sounding coo, and Nile almost laughed. She had spent enough time with the others and their daemons by now to know when they were putting on a show, and the idea that Rex was even remotely demure was a hilarious one. But the pain in her chest was now traveling up her spine, and she felt a tremor against her wrist: her timer going off. This was the longest she had ever been this far from Jordan. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” the target asked again, frowning. “You’re sweating.”

She was, and she hadn’t even noticed. She reached for a napkin at the bar to dab her face with and realized that Rex was back on her shoulder, looking at her strangely. 

“We could walk outside,” the man suggested, starting to turn, but Nile glanced down at her phone. The download still wasn’t done.

“Abort,” said Nicky’s voice in her ear.

“No,” said Nile firmly, before catching herself and giving the target an embarrassed grin. “I mean, no, I’d really like to finish my drink, if you don’t mind.”

Though he looked unconvinced, the man stayed and asked the bartender for some water for her, which she eagerly drank. Her heart was pounding faster now. 

“Nile,” Rex whispered sharply in her, but Nile didn’t look at him, didn’t look anywhere except straight forward past the barkeeper, trying to breathe through the onslaught of pain. _Just a little longer_ , she reassured herself. _I can do this_.

The hand holding her glass of water was shaking. She put her other hand on top to stop it.

“ _Nile_ ,” Rex snapped, louder this time, and Nile tried to breathe slowly and methodically. She could do this. She knew she could.

But something in her heart was _screaming._

_Jordan – where is Jordan_ –

“We’re leaving,” said Rex suddenly, to Nile or to the target, she didn’t know. But if he said anything else to her, she didn’t hear him. Her chest felt tight as a vice and the floor was spinning under her feet. 

A pair of black wings flew into her view, and Nile followed like her life depended on it.

Nile ran through the arched doors, feeling the tail of her dress fly behind her like she was Cinderella at midnight, but instead of meeting a carriage with four horses, she tumbled into strong arms and the firm hold of darkness.

* * *

Nile recognized the feel of cheap fabric at her back, and a few sharp jostles gave away that she was in a vehicle of some kind. She could hear concerned mumbles over her head, but the pain that had knocked her out was gone.

When she opened her eyes next, it was to a bobcat standing on her chest and staring at her with an unspeakably icy fury.

She held up a shaky arm, but he recoiled and jumped somewhere she couldn’t see. As Nicky helped her sit up and rubbed her arm comfortingly, Nile could see Jordan in the corner of the van, physically seething. 

Nile tried to think of the right thing to say, or anything at all, but in the place of that pain that had knocked her out was pure exhaustion, and she could do nothing but close her eyes. Jordan’s icy presence was impossible to ignore, but he didn’t say a thing, so Nile rested uneasily during the ride home.

It wasn’t until they got back to the cabin and Nile got out of the van that Jordan finally snapped.

“You keep trying to change me,” he hissed, his deep voice as harsh as Nile had ever heard it. “But you have no idea who you actually want me to be. Would you really rather kill us than let us stay the way we are?”

Nile’s stomach flipped. “That isn’t—”

“We’ve lost everything else!” Jordan growled, and even the others paused at the low, furious sound he made. “I am all we have left, and I’m clearly not good enough for you-”

“I never said that,” Nile snapped, the anger bouncing between them, fast and unyielding.

“You might as well have, and you know what? I’m done,” he declared with a scary finality, staring Nile down. “If you’re so desperate to change me or… or get rid of me, fine. But I’m not helping you do it anymore.”

“You never helped in the first place!” Nile shouted louder than she meant to, Jordan’s fury feeding into hers like a terrible echo chamber of self-destruction. “You never talk to me, never—"

Jordan raised his hackles, his razor-sharp teeth gleaming white in the moonlight, and it was shocking enough that Nile took a step back. They stared at each other in silence, the confusion and the hurt and the anger all thick in the air around them.

“I’m done,” Jordan whispered this time, then disappeared into the darkness of the cabin before Nile could follow, pain or no pain.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun wasn’t quite up yet when Nile stepped out of the mine and walked through the foliage, her heart still racing from a nightmare. When she emerged from the branches, she saw Andromache leaning against the run-down blue car they came here in, her leopard daemon laying at her feet. 

Nile waited for a rebuke, a command to go back to the mine, but instead, Andy turned a phone towards her and said, “Your mom and brother?”

And all of Nile’s defenses melted away, and instead, her love for her family filled her and flowed out with her words. Booker and his daemon’s words still rang in her ears - “You will know what it’s like to lose everything"- and all Nile could think about was her mama and her brother, the only ones who’d really miss her if she cut them out of her life. The very idea was abhorrent, but Booker’s grief terrified her, and it made her think that, maybe, a clean cut made sense.

Nile refused to let that thought linger. Instead, she talked to Andy about her family with pride in every word, almost as if she could summon them if she tried hard enough. She had missed them since she was deployed, but now, their absence ached sharply and acutely. 

Jordan pushed against her left leg – a soothing gesture for them both – and something in Nile solidified. She wouldn’t say goodbye to them, not yet. She still had time.

Andy took it better than she expected she would, even offering Nile a weapon when she gave her instructions to flee the country. Something wasn’t quite right in Andy’s expression, but when Nile asked if she was going to be okay, Andy resolutely replied, “Always.” Then, she followed Booker and disappeared behind the bushes of Copley’s house.

But her daemon lingered. He and Jordan stared at each other for a long moment, some kind of electricity in the air between them that Nile couldn’t quite place. Then, suddenly, Andy’s daemon spoke.

“Rhemaxos,” he said. “My name is Rex.”

Then, quick as a flash, the leopard was gone.

* * *

Nile had always been a good climber. She had so much restless energy as a kid that eventually, even the trees in the park weren’t tall enough for her. So she started to climb the fire escapes on her building as high as they could go, Jordan changing into some winged thing to follow.

When Nile climbed onto the roof of their cabin in the middle of nowhere, she did so knowing that this time, Jordan wouldn’t follow her. There was a strain in her breast at the distance between them, but she had to get away from her cloud of anger and hurt that was wholly unfamiliar to her. She never thought there would be a day where she wouldn’t want Jordan right at her side. 

Nile sat herself down on the chilly tiles of the roof, panting with exertion from her climb. This kind of discomfort, she didn’t mind. It was something she could focus on, something physically grounding. But the tugging in her chest was tight and wrong and unrelenting. She wished she could blame it just on Jordan’s distance from her. 

“You took my spot,” came a deep, wry voice from behind. Nile should have reached for her gun, or at the very least, turned around. Andy would have called her reaction time sloppy.

Instead, she just curled in closer to herself, not ready to meet those crystalline eyes, even in the dark. “You’ll survive,” croaked Nile, her attempt at a joke undermined by the misery in her voice.

She could hear the gentle padding of paws getting closer, until finally, she heard Rex lay down next to her. From the corner of her eye, she could see how the leopard hung his limbs languidly from the corner of the roof. Nile couldn’t help but notice that his yellow and black fur looked a lot like Jordan’s when it was in the moonlight.

They stayed like that for a while, and Nile was grateful for Rex’s easy silence. One of his round ears flicked as he stared out into the dark grassy expanse below them.

After a little white, Nile dredged up the courage to whisper aloud. “Sorry,” and embarrassment curdled in her chest like spoiled milk. “For me and Jordan. We shouldn’t have fought in front of you guys.”

“You think you’re the first person to have a fight with their daemon?” Rex snorted without any heat behind it. “The fight I had with Andy last year was so brutal, I’m pretty sure the boys were planning to leave the continent _before_ Andy told them to.”

If she had been feeling more like herself, Nile would have asked about it. But heartache drained her energy and clouded her mind, so she closed her eyes and rested the side of her head on her knees instead. 

“Thousands of years, and you still fight,” Nile mutters, defeated. “So this really never gets easier, huh?”

“It’s just living, Nile. That’s all we do, just like everyone else. And I don’t have to tell you that living isn’t easy.” He spoke so matter-of-factly that Nile almost wanted to act indignant in the face of it. It was a familiar tune that she and Andy had played many times. But – fuck. Nile was just so _tired_.

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.” Rex's smooth voice floated in the midnight air, its cadence blending in with the night atmosphere of soft winds and quiet insect trills.

But Nile’s voice still sounded scrubbed raw as she continued, sounding more ashamed and upset at each word.

“I know… I know we let you guys down. And I’m sorry for that, too.”

There was a beat of silence. Then, quietly, almost carefully, Rex spoke again. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’ve really been trying to train Jordan to get on everyone else’s level. We didn’t want to hold you guys back anymore.”

Nile rubbed at her eyes, feeling smaller than she ever had before. Something soft lightly bumped her side, urging her to look over. She opened her eyes and finally looked at Rex. Nile was getting better at reading the nuances in all of their expressions, and she could see the dip in the slope of his brow that gave away his quiet concern. He wasn’t an enigma anymore. He was a friend.

“You’re not holding us back, Nile,” Rex murmured. “And I’m sorry for whatever we did to make you believe that you were. We’ve all needed this time to recover, but we should have seen that something was wrong sooner.”

Strangely, his words only made Nile’s urge to break down even stronger. Any relief being told she wasn’t a burden was lost in the storm of emotions she was barely keeping at bay. Despite her best efforts, her discipline was failing her, and she had no idea how to start fixing herself again. She had done it before, after her father’s death, but everything was different now. She was missing the one person she could always reach for in times of crisis. 

As if reading her thoughts, Rex quietly asked: “What do you need?” 

Then, Nile finally gave in and cried, because she knew the answer before she even opened her mouth.

“I need to go home.” She felt tears run down her cheeks in warm streams. Nile pressed the heel of her hands to her eyes to try and keep them from coming, but breathing was starting to feel more like heaving. 

It had been years since she’d let herself cry like this. It was sometime before deployment, but she couldn’t even remember exactly when. She did remember that her mama hugged her through it, because _no matter how old you are, you’ll always be my baby girl_. The memory made her sob even harder.

Something soft pressed against her elbow, and her immediate thought was _Jordan_ , but it was Rex, gently pressing his forehead into her arms. Without thinking, she threw herself towards the mass of fur that felt so much like her own daemon’s but wasn’t, because he _wasn’t here_ , because she had pushed him too hard and too far, and maybe he would never let her touch his fur again, and her heart hurt at the very idea, she didn’t know how much more she could stand to lose –

She cried into Rex’s neck, and he let her. For how long, she had no idea, but eventually, her choked breaths tapered off into lighter hiccups and her eyes stopped leaking tears. They didn’t even sting when Nile moved to wipe them away with a shaky breath. 

“If you need to go home, Nile, then, go home.” Rex rumbled in Nile’s arms.

Nile froze. “That’s a bad joke.” Her hands were still laced through that silky fur - he still trusted Nile not to hurt Andy’s soul - and she couldn’t imagine why he would joke about this, of all things. But she couldn’t find any sarcasm in his voice when he continued on. 

“You said so yourself. You need to go home. And unlike the rest of us, you can. So, Nile, go home.” He was speaking so casually, Nile wondered if he had forgotten the severity of his suggestion.

“But Booker said—” Nile started.

“I’m sure Booker said his piece,” Rex cut her off, only the slightest growl betraying his feelings on the subject. “If you asked Joe and Nicky, they would share theirs, I’m sure. Only you know what’s right for you. We like to pretend there are rules when it comes to this kind of existence,” and here Rex was talking about him and Andy both, “And we tricked ourselves into believing that, for a while. And then, you showed up, and proved our cynical natures wrong.”

Nile reeled back a bit in surprise. Rex didn’t break the intensity of their shared gaze. “You had every reason to leave, but you proved our doubts wrong. You came back for us. You saved us. So if you think you need to go home, I trust your judgment.”

His words settled between them like a dense fog in the early morning, layering everything it touched with a gentle sort of heaviness. As the realization turned to conviction, however, Nile noticed that she hadn’t felt this light in a long time.

“Okay,” said Nile, and this time her voice was clear. “Okay. We’re going home.”


	6. Chapter 6

The empty clip stared back at Nile, and before she had finished the thought, Jordan spoke:

“Andy.”

Nile was a soldier. She did best when given directions. But when she looked down at Jordan, searching for a plan, the same questions were reflected in his eyes. She wouldn’t find any easy answers from him, but they still had a choice to make. So Nile took a deep, centering breath, and she chose.

She didn’t have instructions, but at least she had a mission. She had to stay focused on the now. It wasn’t until the elevator doors closed that the weight of her decision started to set in. The family she was leaving behind and the lives she was going to take. The urge to falter only lasted a moment. Then, she closed her eyes and saw the array of newspaper clippings and photos Colpley had collected, an incomplete testament to all the good these people had done.

Nile felt Jordan slide against her leg, and in response, she set her shoulders, resolute. 

She hadn’t expected Andy to surrender. Hyper-focused and running on adrenaline, Nile struggled to find the words to convince her, but before she could even try, Jordan hopped onto the gurney and found them for her.

“Immortal or not, you made a promise.” The laboratory was so silent, even the machines seemed to lower in volume. His deep voice was quiet, but insistent. “Whatever it takes.”

And in that moment, Nile was so grateful for him. She saw something shift in Andy’s eyes, and then she sat up and shot the guards who broke in. They didn’t have time to think after that, and as Andy undid her own restraints, Nile moved to get the rest of the daemons from the cages.

“You came back,” Rex said, slightly stunned as he sprang out of his cage.

“Yeah,” Nile said, moving to help the others. She would have to deal with the ramifications later. For now, she had a mission to complete. Jordan stood right beside her, as he always did, and she leaned on that familiarity to push herself through the blood and chaos that would follow. That, and her faith that she was doing the right thing.

* * *

Their journey back to Chicago was long and complicated. They shuffled from planes to buses to trains in order to hide their trail, and Jordan was silent through every phase of the journey. It wasn’t the icy anger of before. He was acting carefully distant and removed from her, which was almost worse, so she did the same. After hours of this, though, the emotional toll was getting high, and her own anger started to give way to exhaustion.

They were on the last leg of their trip, an Amtrak train from Detroit to Chicago, when Nile decided to try to bridge the gap between them. “It’s forever, Jordan,” Nile whispered to the bobcat on the seat next to her, who stared adamantly out the window at the passing scenery. “And at some point, we’ll only have each other.”

Nile watched as his ink-tipped ears wilted ever so slightly, and she felt a fissure in the wall Jordan had built around him. Nile felt a longing slip between the two of them, quiet and unassuming.

Jordan stayed silent, but when Nile put her hand on the top of his head, he didn’t move away. That was something.

As they transferred from Union Station to the L train, Nile thought about what she would say when she saw her mother face to face, but the right words weren’t coming to her. By the time she was at her mother’s apartment, she was still struggling, but she didn’t give herself time to linger before knocking. When the door opened to the sight of her mother, she realized she never needed them. Whatever she was going to say was overpowered by her mother’s screech and the sound of breaking glass, before she pulled Nile through the door and into her arms. 

Jordan yowled and pitched forward like an arrow out of a quiver until he could bury his head into the neck of her mother’s honey badger daemon. And it was there, with both her and her soul in a familiar embrace, that she finally let herself collapse under the weight she’d been carrying since her throat first got slit.

Her mama didn’t demand any explanations as Nile cried, breathing in deep the scent of her mother’s old floriental perfume that came to mean home and reassurance and safety. Her mama let her cry, like Rex did, but when she stopped, this time, she got to look up and see her mama’s face, worn and worried but still all her, and it was almost enough to make Nile start crying all over again.

Her mother led her to their old couch, and Nile told her everything. She spilled her guts like when she was ten and snuck out for the first time and had felt so guilty, she thought she was going to die from it. Guilt followed her now, admitting to all the taboos that she and Jordan had committed since she first died, but her mom just rubbed her back like she used to do when she got anxiety attacks.

After a while, there was nothing else for Nile to say. In the silence, her mom kept rubbing her back, and Nile worried that she had shared too much, too fast. She opened her mouth to try and think of something to make her mom feel less overwhelmed, but she beat her to it.

“So… immortally, huh?” Both amusement and disbelief colored her mother’s voice, and Nile laughed, a cracked and dry noise. 

“Yeah,” Nile admitted, curling in closer.

“And these people you’re with, their daemons—”

“Yeah,” Nile repeated, starting to feel unsure. After spending weeks getting used to their ways, she had forgotten how absolutely insane and wrong everything first felt when she watched her new team break every rule in the book when it came to their daemons. What did her mama think of her and Jordan, now that they were trying to break those rules, too?

“Well,” her mother said thoughtfully, “They're the oldest people on the planet. It stands to reason that they would know more than we do.”

And that was it, simple and matter-of-fact. Nile let out a breath. But there was one last thing she was holding back. Something that she had been working so hard to achieve, but still felt terrifying to say aloud. 

“Jordan could change, mom,” Nile admitted, staring at an old crack in the apartment wall instead of at her mother as she finally voiced her greatest fear. “We can help people if Jordan learns how to change, but what if… when enough time passes, you can’t even recognize him?”

“Oh, now that’s just silly,” her mom said, and Nile turned to her in surprise. Her mother looked at her with a bemused sort of patience, like when she used to ask a million questions when she was a girl.

“How can you say that?” asked Nile. “That doesn’t scare you at all?”

“Why would I be scared?” That was her mother’s daemon speaking up from the floor, pausing his grooming of Jordan’s head. “We’ve watched you change since birth into just about every creature under the sun, Jordi, and we never worried that we wouldn’t recognize you. That never even crossed our minds.”

Jordan’s ears perked up as Nile realized she hadn’t thought of it like that. She'd forgotten that Jordan had changed a hundred times already. He had settled into one form, just like daemons were expected to, because that was the predictable norm, but her life wasn’t predictable anymore. Anything could happen, just like when she was a kid, when the possibilities were endless and Jordi could be anything he wanted to be. The memories of being a child felt so distant, but if she concentrated, she could remember how it felt.

And suddenly, a simple fact that she’d completely forgotten came to the forefront of her mind:  _ Jordi used to fly _ . 

“If Jordan changes, then that’s okay.” Her mom pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We all change, but baby, I’d know you anywhere.”

The relief that hit her like a wave was so overwhelming, she almost drowned under it. Her tears were quieter this time, but she clung to her mama’s warm body as tight as she could as she rode out the cascade of everything in her heart that she’d been carrying for so long: the exhaustion, the trepidation, the horror that she’d never see her family again, or if she did, they wouldn’t know her.

“I’m sorry, mama,” Nile whispered, her voice cracked, and she felt her mother tug her upright. The crease in her brow was deeper, now, but she put a firm hand on her shoulder. 

“You didn’t do any of this, Nile. This isn’t on you.” Her hand cradled Nile’s chin, and a smile graced her mother’s beautiful face. “Baby, I’m sorry for everything you suffered, but you have to see that for me, this? This is a miracle.”

That was one word no one in the team had used to describe their situation, but her mother was adamant. “I prayed for you every day since you were deployed. Now, my prayers have been answered. I’ll never have to pick up the phone and wonder if it’s news that my baby girl is dead.”

Something sober slipped into her mother’s voice then, something that spoke of the months since Nile first died, and Nile wanted to apologize all over again, but her mother didn’t let her. She kept going, speaking with absolute determination and faith. “And I’m so proud of you, honey. You did a brave, good thing, going back for those people.”

Nile knew her mother was right. A world without them was too dark to fathom. She had gotten to know them with shared conversations on lazy days and during rigorous training in the cool mornings. At some point, she had gotten used to the weight of Cia on her shoulder and the feel of Neppi’s fur under her palm. 

“Do you trust them?” 

Nile twisted towards her mother in surprise, then considered the question. It wasn’t something she had even consciously contemplated before, but the answer came easily.

“Yes,” said Nile, and she realized how much she believed it.

“And it’s obvious they trust you,” her mom said, and Nile knew she was right. She remembered how her team’s daemons not only accepted her touch, but sought it out, a testament of their trust. Nile had always thought touching someone else’s daemon would be impossible, unforgivable. But, no. Touching their feathers and their fur, it was something to be treasured, and Nile promised herself that she wouldn’t forget that, but it was also easy. 

“Yeah,” Nile said, feeling familiar confusion and frustration slip into her tone. “Then why has this been so  _ hard? _ ”

Her mother hummed thoughtfully, bringing her fingers up to rub at Nile’s scalp. “Seems to me,” she said, “If you trust them, and they trust you, all that leaves is a lack of trust in yourself.”

Nile paused at that, and looked back over at Jordan, whose ears were lowered. It hadn’t occurred to her so straightforwardly, but it was true that they weren’t working together the way they used to. After their fallout, Nile knew that he didn’t trust her, but it never occurred to her that Jordan thought Nile couldn’t trust  _ him _ . She pushed him, sure, but of course she trusted him. He was the one who put the pieces together when they realized the gun Andy gave her had an empty clip. And in the lab, he was the one who got Andy to fight back.

“You have a good head on your shoulders, Nile,” her mom said, turning to give Jordan a sweet smile, “And you’ve got a smart soul. You’ve got to have faith in yourself, in each other. Especially…” and her mom’s voice turned a shade melancholy, “Especially if you’re all you’ll ever have. Now, promise us.”

“I promise,” both Nile and Jordan said at the same time. They looked at each other in surprise, but Nile smiled at him. When his ears perked in return, their broken base she thought might be unfixable slowly started to mend.

“Good,” her mother said with a settled nod. “Now. I think it’s time to eat.” And the prospect of dinner with her family sent such a shock of warmth through her, her cheeks almost hurt by how hard she was smiling when she stood up to follow her mama to the kitchen.

As they walked, Nile felt Jordan press against her leg as he slipped passed, and for a little while longer, everything felt okay.


	7. Chapter 7

Nile couldn’t stay in Chicago for a full twenty-four hours. Copley said it would be too risky, and Nile knew he was right. So, that next morning, after a wonderfully familiar french-toast breakfast, she hugged her mother as tight as she could as she said goodbye. A few tears welled in her mother’s eyes, but Nile and Jordan were less fearful than when she had said goodbye before Nile’s deployment. Now, at the very least, her mother would always know her daughter was alive.

Nile and Jordan caught a plane out of O’Hare later that day, and they soon started their trek back to Europe. The knots that had been binding Nile’s chest since this immortality business began were finally starting to unwind. She knew that she still had to work things out with Jordan, but she was feeling optimistic. Seeing her mother made Nile feel more whole and at peace than she had in a very long time. 

Unfortunately, that peace was cut short when she got stabbed in the neck with a needle. She was switching trains in France and leaving a bathroom stall when her assailant took her unawares. Nile was pretty sure she got a good punch in, but they must have hit her with a tranquilizer because soon she was out cold.

Next thing she knew, her head was pounding, and she was groaning as she shifted against something hard and unyielding. When she managed to open her eyes, her vision was still hazy, but she noticed the metallic walls and the wide industrial space and figured out that she must be in a warehouse. 

As the dullness of the drugs faded and she started to process information at a faster pace, she scanned her surroundings for a better look. Jordan, of course, was the first thing she saw, and as always there was a pang of relief that he hadn’t left her. His eyes were squinting, obviously still trying to fight off the drowsiness, and Nile tried to reach out before realizing her hands were zip-tied behind her. 

Keeping her breathing quiet and even, she clocked the two armed guys who were sitting at the opposite end of the room. One’s daemon was a German Shepherd, and the other’s was some kind of snake wrapped loosely around his neck. They were dressed in civilian clothing, and one was casually smoking a cigarette. 

_ Okay. Breathe _ , she told herself, adrenaline coursing through her veins.  _ Two armed guards. What else? _

Nile did her best to shift on the concrete ground to get a better view without drawing their attention. A little farther past the two guards was a single door. Nile couldn’t spot any other exits but the window, and she wouldn’t make it out of there with her hands zip-tied. She was effectively trapped, but if these people knew who she was, there’d be a lot more manpower here, she was pretty sure. 

If her captors didn’t know about her immortality, then all she needed was one good death. The idea of dying still filled her with some dread – she wondered if she was supposed to get  _ used  _ to dying – but it would be an exit, at least. Hopefully, they could dispose of her “body” before she missed her last check-in.

The panic loosened slightly at that reminder. The check-ins. Andy’s and Copley’s plan had been rigorous for this entire trip, and when Nile didn’t show up for her next check-in, they’d know that something was wrong.

“They’d do the same for you”, Andy had once told her about the team, and Nile tried to buoy herself with that statement. They’ll come for her, if they weren’t already on their way.

Suddenly, her stomach churned with horror as another thought came:  _ Mom _ . Had these people been tracking her since Chicago? Did Nile put her family in danger after all? 

_ Stop,  _ Nile forcefully cut off her train of thought. They couldn’t deal with that now. First, they had to get killed.

But then one of the men noticed she was awake and cursed, loudly, before whispering into his radio. The word “reinforcements” was barely comprehensible, but it was there. Nile clenched her jaw, her heart jackrabbiting. Maybe they knew what she was, after all. That changed things. 

Nile switched her tactics and started scanning the metallic wall at her back. She could hear shuffling from the other end of the room, but she kept her focus on the task at hand. Finally, her eyes caught the outline of a vent against the wall, and she crawled over to it as fast as she could.

There was radio chatter, and the door was definitely opening, so Nile sat back and kicked at the vent as hard as she could. Then, with her back to the wall, she reached clumsily for it with her bound hands. The corner was loose. She scrambled and grabbed at it, and Jordan leaned on the opposite side to help, pushing the cover back –

A shot rang out, especially loud in these closed quarters, but it didn’t make contact with either of them. If they didn’t want to shoot on sight, Nile and Jordan would have just enough time.

“Go,” Nile ordered, shielding the vent with her body so Jordan could climb through. But Jordan hesitated. Nile felt a rising frustration, but before she could act on it, the wall Jordan had been holding up around him collapsed, and the feelings between them translucent for the first time in a very long time. 

Jordan wasn't being stubborn. He was afraid. Afraid that Nile didn’t trust him anymore. Afraid that if he left her now, she wouldn’t even care if he never came back. 

And Nile felt her heart break. They’d both gotten it so wrong. But there wasn’t time now: there was another shot, and she cursed as it hit her thigh. She huddled closer to the wall, practically pushing the bobcat through the vent, but she kept her gaze locked on Jordan’s fearful yellow eyes instead of any of the action behind her. 

“You’ll come back,” Nile promised, and she made it as clear as she could to her daemon that she was sure of it with every fiber of her immortal body. They stared into each other’s eyes, and Jordan felt what Nile felt; finally, they trusted each other. 

Without a moment to lose, Jordan went through the vent and didn’t turn back.

* * *

Nile had prepared for the physical pain that came from her daemon being separated from her, but as Jordan ran down the vent, something new took them both by surprise: a sort of double-vision emerged. 

Nile was her daemon, and her daemon was her, but it seemed that when one of them was in a different place physically from the other, their attention split. It was like looking in a telescope with one eye, while trying to look at the room you’re in with the other. This didn’t hurt, not like the physical distance did, but it was unsettling and unnatural. But now, there was no other choice. Nile was with their captors, and Jordan had to concentrate.

He forced himself forward through the vent, trying his best to ignore the pain that grew stronger under his fur the further away he crawled. Indistinct sounds were muffled by his metallic encasement. He heard a voice, but it was distorted, as if he was hearing it underwater –  _ “Where is it? How is that possible?” _ – and in Nile’s eyes, he could see a man towering over them, hauling her by the wrists and demanding answers from them –

No, Jordan reminded himself. Not them.  _ Her _ . Jordan tried to stifle his nauseous fear and clawing loneliness and centered himself. This wasn’t going to be like their botched attempt in Geneva, because this time, they were on the same page. Jordan reminded himself that he could still feel Nile, could see what she was seeing. Neither of them was really alone.

The bobcat continued to crawl down the vent in a straight line, hoping to keep it simple so he could find his way back to Nile, but then a fork in the road forced his hand. He had to choose a direction, so away from the sound of boots and muffled voices it was. Jordan breathed as best he could through the tight, sharp pain in his chest, feeling more miserable and fatigued every step, and he knew Nile could feel it, too.

Suddenly, he tripped over a ridge in the ventway and stumbled, and an involuntary hiss came out. Then: gunshots. One, two, blasting through the metal just an inch away from where Jordan was crouched. A jolt of panic went through him, and he squirmed forward, hating how trapped he felt in the limited space.

More shots, one grazing his hind leg, one barely missing his ear, and Jordan kept crawling. He could hear loud barking from a daemon outside the vent, and it was gaining on him. But all of the sudden, the barks were cut off, and they quickly and violently turned into wet chokes. Jordan tried to keep moving, but hearing a familiar voice through the holes in the air-vent that made him pause.

“If you can fit in there, Nile, then we definitely need to add that to your resume.”

Jordan laughed, breathless with relief. Then, he scratched and pushed through the nearest vent opening he could find. When the hole-riddled metal finally gave way, he rolled out of the vent and into a grey, metallic hallway. Neppi’s orange fur stood out like a spotlight against the empty industrial walls, and Jordan had never been happier to see her.

Jordan leaped forward and pressed his muzzle into Neppi’s warm neck. She froze for just a moment, but she didn’t hesitate to return the gesture, sharing easy warmth for a moment.

“As eager as I am for an update, _azizi_ ,” Neppi said easily as she pulled away, “we should get your other half out of here first, yes?”

“Please,” replied Jordan with a weak laugh. 

Together, they moved quickly, moving parallel to the vent he had been crawling through to find their way back to Nile. 

“Where are the others?” asked Jordan.

“Nicky is our sniper and Joe’s our getaway,” Neppi explained as they ran down the hallway, “We get to Nile, the others will handle the rest.”

Jordan could see through Nile’s eyes that more men were leaving the warehouse and could be headed their way, but Jordan kept his head level as he referred the information to Neppi. 

Jordan and Neppi turned a corner just in time to see those men on the other side of the hallway. Jordan raised his hackles and hissed, but before he could make a move, one of the guards fell to the ground, his daemon already disappearing to dust. As the guard’s dead body slumped forward, Jordan could see a hole behind him where a bullet had shredded the metallic wall like it was confetti. The walls must have been less reinforced here, but Jordan was still stunned at the idea that Nicky was firing blind.

Then, a streak of brown through the air, quick as lightning, and Jordan watched as two more men fell.

_ So not  _ that  _ blind _ , Jordan thought as Cia flew a quick corner. She landed on the hunch of Neppi’s shoulder with bloody talons.

“How many left?” Neppi asked.

“At least four in the cell,” Jordan reported with a look through Nile’s eyes.

“Three,” Cia corrected cooly, and Nile watched as yet another man slumped forward, lifeless, his daemon gone forever.

Jordan swallowed thickly. So many deaths, and for what? But he kept moving, vaguely noticing that the ache in his chest was lighter. They climbed over the bodies and into the room he and Nile woke up in. He could spot Nile from the other end of the room.

Another shot shattered a window, and the bullet went right through the neck of one of their guards, his snake daemon writhing painfully on the ground before disappearing. Enemy shots rang out in return, and Jordan ducked low on instinct. He felt Neppi pressing in at his side. 

“Tell Nile to get to the far right corner,” he whispered to Jordan. Jordan didn’t understand how he was supposed to relay this message at first, since he was just as far away from Nile as Neppi was. But Nile must have heard the command through Jordan's ears, because she awkwardly crawled her way to the corner, her captors too distracted by Cia’s dives and Nicky’s sniping to notice.

Then, the world exploded around them. Jordan felt his ears ring, but centered himself quickly. Immediately, he peered through the debris, searching for Nile in the haze, his heart in his throat. But as the smoke started to clear, he saw her again, whole and unharmed, and he dashed over as quickly as he could.

Neppi got to her first and bit through her zip-tie, but the moment her arms were free, Jordan practically bounded into them. Breath came freely, and the world slid back into place.

They didn’t have time to relish in their reunion, though. Cia was back in the air, finishing off the stragglers, and Neppi helped Nile get to her feet. There was a gaping hole in the wall from the explosion, and Jordan and Nile followed Neppi through it, into the daylight.

A jeep drove up quickly, and immediately, Nicky reached out to Nile to help her up. Jordan and Neppi followed her in, and then the car jerked sharply into motion. Jordan turned back and saw Cia soar from the destroyed warehouse, and she landed smoothly into the back of the moving jeep, but their headcount still wasn’t complete.

“Andy?” Nile yelled over the din. There was no sign of her or Rex anywhere. Maybe she sat this one out, but Jordan doubted it.

“She’ll catch up,” Joe shouted from the driver’s seat, and Jordan hardly had a moment to wonder what that meant before there was another explosion. The building was already getting smaller as the jeep drove away, but they could still see smoke and fire engulf it for a brief moment before it started to collapse in on itself.

And then: Andy. Emerging through the haze like a Valkyrie, riding some kind of horse Jordan had never seen before. A stream of smoke followed her trail and soon enough, the horse was making pace with the speed of the jeep. Andy jumped in, and suddenly, the horse became an eagle, swooping through the open door. Nicky finally closed the jeep door and Joe revved the car to full speed.

Jordan looked at Nile’s dirty, exhausted face, and thought in relief:  _ we made it _ . Nile turned to him and smiled in return.

Nicky passed Nile a water bottle, which she drank greedily, then collapsed against the side of the jeep. She felt like she might shake out of her skin, and Jordan pressed into her thigh, like he’d done to comfort her so many times before.

“Thank you,” Nile whispered, her eyes closed. Neppi tucked close into her right side, and unprompted started to lick the blood clean from Nile’s face. Cia moved to Nile’s knee, her quick gaze probably scanning for any part of her that was still healing. Rex, now back in his leopard form, sauntered over between the two other daemons, then flopped his front paws down flat on top of Nile’s stomach. 

Nile wheezed helplessly, and Jordan laughed. All eyes not on the road turned to him at that sound, and he realized this might be the first time he’d laughed in their presence. He had a feeling they’d get used to it.

“Wait,” Nile sat back up, and a high alert shot from her to Jordan and back again. “My mom—”

“It’s taken care of,” Nicky promised. “We’ll tell you everything later, but right now, you should rest.”

Jordan didn’t need to be told twice. With absolute faith that he hadn’t felt in months, he curled up onto Nile’s lap, and let her soft pets soothe them until they both fell asleep.


	8. Chapter 8

Nile and Jordan slept until they had to stop for gas somewhere close to the border of France. The sun was still in the sky, so it couldn’t have been more than a few hours since they were rescued. Nile could still feel exhaustion seeping into her bones, but there were too many important questions keeping her awake with anxiety. Before she could really relax, she had to have a debrief and a plan, so when they got back on the road, the others filled her in.

Finding out if her mother was okay was Nile’s main concern. Since Nicky was at the wheel, Joe pulled open a laptop to show what had tipped their kidnappers off at customs, but thankfully, there was no paper trail to lead back to her family. Slowly, she started to calm down. She wanted to call her mother, but they didn’t have a burner phone on them now, so it would have to wait. 

Joe said a doctor who worked with Merrick was the mastermind behind this kidnapping attempt. Though Merrick was her main benefactor, she had plenty of seedy resources of her own. Thankfully, the doctor was working with unsophisticated security tech, and Copley gained access to it quickly. They had tracked the doctor down first, and Andy had gotten Nile’s location out of her. 

Nile asked question after question, but the others were able to tie off the loose ends of almost all of them with an efficiency that only people who’d been doing this for hundreds of years had. They would regroup in Switzerland to get the rest of their supplies, then pack up and hightail it out of Europe. Copley – who had been thoroughly reamed out, if Nicky’s scoff from the front seat indicated anything – was still working on their route. Soon, Nile ran out of questions, and her hard focus started to give way to exhaustion. 

The memories of her capture would linger a while longer, but the worst of them all was the fear of Jordan’s face when she told him to leave her. All this time, she thought he was just being stubborn, but she was wrong. She looked down at her daemon, now curled up on her lap, her guilt lingering. 

“I’m sorry,” Nile admitted in a quiet voice. “I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.”

Jordi’s eyelids lazily blinked open, and for the first time in a while, those amber eyes didn’t look distant when they gazed her way.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry, too,” he purred, and a wave of contentment washed over Nile; she hadn’t heard him purr in years. He placed his chin on Nile’s knee, and she knew that they were okay. 

They reached the safehouse sometime after nightfall. After the engine turned off, they crawled out from the back of the jeep and into the crisp night air. Nicky offered her the first shower, but she waved him off and said she’d be in right behind him. Nile relished the chance to stretch her legs, and she wasn’t sure when she would get to relish in this kind of mountain quiet again. 

She walked into the night, Jordan trailing at her side without a word. She only walked as far as a familiar tree, the same one Nicky and Joe had sat under what felt like centuries ago, back when this had all started. Back when Nile was sure that she had to force herself and her daemon into the right shape to fit into this new life. But they were enough. They were always enough.

Nile put a hand on the gnarled trunk. The night was still. She could hear the wind blow through the trees and the crickets in the fields. _Mom would love this place_ , Nile thought. Maybe they could bring her here one day. They still had time.

Jordan’s eyes reflected in the moonlight. Nile had forgotten how beautiful he could look in the nighttime. She kneeled down and rubbed her hand under his chin, and a mutual warmth flowed between them.

“Let’s go home,” Jordi said, and she followed him up the footpath towards the lit house. As she walked, she thought of her mother and brother, and she thought of her old apartment in Chicago. But when she walked through the cabin and into the kitchen, she smelled the herbs from Nicky’s cooking and heard easy bickering between Andy and Joe in some language Nile couldn’t place. She thought about all the homes she was going to find with her new family, too.

By the time she took a shower and scarfed down some food, Nile decided she was ready to be done thinking for the day. She collapsed on the nearest flat and soft surface, which happened to be the mattress Andy and Joe were lounging on. Their presence wasn’t a deterrent; if anything, Nile wanted a good night’s sleep with all of them nearby. After flopping herself in between them with irreverent ease, she wasn’t surprised when she felt a heavy set of paws on her chest, putting enough pressure to make her gasp in annoyance but not actually crush her.

That initiated a proper pile-on, apparently, because humans and daemons both shifted in every which way to get themselves comfortable on the bed. Nile closed her eyes and pretended to groan, but she could feel a fond smile on her lips.

Joe must have gotten Nicky to join because, at some point, Nile felt feathers on her cheek, but apart from that, she had no idea who she was touching or who was touching her. It was a mess of limbs and hair and fur, and as absurd as it was, it felt right. Someone was elbowing her in the thigh and a daemon was already drooling on her arm, and Nile couldn’t remember the last time she felt this happy. 

Then, a strange, foreign feeling bloomed in Nile’s chest. Something she had never felt before in her life. A glowing sensation that started right above her heart and gently flowed down through the rest of her body like a river spring. 

For a split second, Nile saw the world through Jordan’s eyes, as he pressed his head into a warm, pliant hand that wasn’t Nile’s.

She opened her eyes, shocked at the sensation, but she didn’t move to get up. Her breath caught in her chest, she kept staring up at the ceiling. She decided that she wasn’t going to look. If Jordan wanted this, then she would trust him. 

The warm glow eased into a sort of humming vibration under Nile’s skin. Some adrenaline from the surprise lingered, but Nile felt both she and Jordan relax and let go, trusting the touch completely. Nile had no idea who Jordi touched, but that didn’t unsettle her. If anything, she felt like she was right where she was supposed to be.

* * *

The idea came with the dawn. 

Nile had been dreaming of her dad. He was playing “the floor is lava” with her, and her daddy’s bulldog daemon complained that Jordan had the upper hand because he could fly. Jordan had become a moth, an owl, a butterfly in the blink of an eye, and Nile hadn’t questioned it in the dream, just like when she was a kid.

The feeling of Jordan transforming was both foreign and familiar, and it lingered as she regained consciousness. She opened her eyes to the morning sunrise behind the blinds, and the idea began to solidify.

She tried to sit up, then remembered how utterly intertwined she was, bracketed by bodies of humans and daemons alike. Slowly Nile untangled herself from the bed, trying to keep from waking the rest of the group up. 

Once upright, Nile turned around and took stock: they were all there. She realized that she’d never seen all of them asleep at the same time before. Seeing all of their faces this lax and open in sleep was a bit comical, considering that they had stormed a warehouse to save her less than twenty-four hours ago.

Jordan deftly slid from Nile’s lap to the floor, awake but looking at her sluggishly, his eyelids half-closed. As Nile finished twisting her way out of Andy’s arm and off of Neppi’s back, her elbow hit the bed frame slightly, causing a small tremor. It was enough to wake Cia from where she was perched, eyes instantly wide and alert. 

Nile winced in apology. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep,” she whispered, rubbing a finger under the hawk’s beak. Cia acquiesced easily, and her eyes slid closed again as Nile tip-toed to the door, Jordan trailing lightly at her heels. 

As they walked outside to the morning mountain scenery for what would be the last time in a while, Nile pulled her arms up in a lethargic stretch, feeling more confident than she had in a long time. She looked down at Jordan to see him doing the same, stretching from his front paws to his back.

“Getting lazy?” Nile teased.

“In your dreams,” replied Jordan easily, and Nile’s smile widened.

“Want to give it one more go?” Nile asked. They had spent many similar mornings trying to get Jordan to transform, but Nile was feeling hopeful. This time, they would do it the right way. They would do it together.

Jordan looked up at her, his body loose and relaxed, and he nodded.

Nile closed her eyes, and tried to remember what it felt like in her dream. Unlike the rest of her team, her memories of childhood were still in her grasp, and instead of continuing to move past them and outgrow them, she decided to use them. 

She brought every memory of childhood to mind. Every time Jordan transformed not with any conscious effort, but with just a thought, a childish whim. Some memories still stung of grief or disappointment, but Nile didn’t shy away from them. She breathed in deep, calm and centered, and she remembered.

She had felt this way before, she’d felt this way hundreds of times, but she still gasped at the feather-light twitch she felt in her lungs.

Opening her eyes against the sunlight, Nile could make out an unfamiliar wingspan against the sky. Nile could _feel_ the wind in Jordan’s feathers and, for the first time in years, his elation at flying flowed from him to Nile and back. Jordan squawked and Nile whooped, the sounds of their combined jubilation resonating, filling up the open space between them.

Out of seemingly nowhere, another winged figure flew up into the sky, flying at Jordan’s side and cawing in delight. Jordan answered in kind, and Cia followed Jordan’s path as they twisted and wound their way across the morning sky.

There was a howl from behind Nile, and Nile turned back and saw Neppi, head tilted back as she yipped in delight. Rex didn’t make a sound, but his eyes were bright.

The rest of the team arrived quickly after that, and Nile couldn’t help but blush a bit at the pride evident in their grinning faces. Joe clasped her shoulder and Nicky pulled her in for a side hug. Andy pushed them both away so she could hug Nile herself, and Nile practically glowed.

An insistent yawp barely warned Nile before she turned back around and was faced with the sight of Jordan barreling straight towards her. She caught Jordan as they tumbled backward in disarray, flipping over once until Nile landed flat on her back. The impact took the wind out of her, but she grinned anyway as she stared up at Jordan, back in his bobcat form and practically prancing on her chest.

“We did it,” Jordan gasped, their pride for each other blinding.

Nile pulled the bobcat in close and pressed her forehead to his, and put all the love she had for him in the simple gesture.

“We did it,” Nile agreed, and Jordan purred loudly and deeply. 

Living forever didn’t feel so bad at that moment. They had their family and their team. And no matter what else happened, they would always have each other. As Nile ran his hands through Jordan’s thick, familiar fur, she knew that would be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> If you would like a list of all the daemons and their various forms, or simply want a visualization guide, please click [here](https://flightsofwonder.tumblr.com/post/645744356819648512/the-thing-with-feathers-list-of-daemons-jordan). I welcome any and all questions about this universe over at my [tumblr](https://flightsofwonder.tumblr.com/post/645744356819648512/the-thing-with-feathers-list-of-daemons-jordan). Thank you so much for reading!


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